The 5 Most WTF Moments From 'The Counselor'

By
The Playlist Staff
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The PlaylistOctober 28, 2013 at 2:05PM

Acidic, cynical, perhaps having a twisted laugh on those who think they’re in control of their own fate, Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor” is an incredibly moribund and bleak poem about greed, chance, and the dark side of man. It’s like a merciless and blistering riff on the adage, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” And coming from the mind of celebrated author Cormac McCarthy (“The Road,” “Blood Meridian”), known for grim and unforgiving stories of fate, morality and the dark shadows of human nature, what did you expect? It’s classic McCarthy chiseled down to the bloody bone (and note this isn’t his first script: McCarthy wrote a screenplay for 1977’s “The Gardener's Son”—watch it in full here).

Acidic, cynical, perhaps having a twisted laugh on those who think they’re in control of their own fate, Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor” is an incredibly moribund and bleak poem about greed, chance, and the dark side of man. It’s like a merciless and blistering riff on the adage, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” And coming from the mind of celebrated author Cormac McCarthy (“The Road,” “Blood Meridian”), known for grim and unforgiving stories of fate, morality and the dark shadows of human nature, what did you expect? It’s classic McCarthy chiseled down to the bloody bone (and note this isn’t his first script: McCarthy wrote a screenplay for 1977’s “The Gardener's Son”—watch it in full here).

Starring Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz, "The Counselor" is also one of the darkest and weirdest movies a studio has released this year. “A cologne ad for the scent of despair,” L.A. Times writer Mark Olson wrote on Twitter much to our amusement. As you might expect, McCarthy’s screenplay is replete with his characteristic machismo tough guys, symbolically weighty women, and philosophical asides, in which a character searching for the perfect diamond for his fiancée turns into an epic conversation about cosmic perfection. Days later we can’t stop thinking about it or talking about it—even if most of agree that it’s not an entirely successful film (read our review here). It’s a movie that on some levels is opaque in its narrative—McCarthy & Scott are simply not interested in plot mechanics or the who, what and where of the past—and, on other levels, is incredibly nakedly simple, acting as a cruel riff on chance via the Faustian pact. No deal with the devil ends well.

It’s a testament to the singular, witchy power of "The Counselor" that such thematic depth can even be extracted from a movie that often times flirts with outright boring the audience, largely thanks to dialogue that become circular and dense. In another universe, this film could easily be put on as a play, since almost every scene consists of two people talking, usually with one or both of them comfortably sitting down. Maybe this only adds to its strangeness, considering that we know McCarthy, through his tersely cinematic novels like “The Road” and “Blood Meridian,” is capable of wide-open vistas and pulse-quickening suspense set pieces.

So maybe you’ve seen the movie and want to revisit its epic oddness, or more likely, given the movie’s weak opening, mixed reviews and disastrous CinemaScore, you’ve stayed away, and want to instead be an armchair commentator on all things “The Counselor.” Either way, we present, with all the subtlety of Javier Bardem’s electro-shock hair, the five most WTF moments from “The Counselor.” It goes without saying that spoilers follow. Quite frankly, this list could easily stretch to 10, and probably 20 with repeated viewings. It’s that insane.

1. The Catfish Scene Is Spectacular, The Rest Of The Sex Scenes Not So MuchBefore the movie had even hit theaters, the Cameron-Diaz-having-sex-with-a-car scene was already building a fair share of buzz in the blogosphere. And while the scene is every bit as outrageous as it sounds, it’s also one of the rare moments where Cormac McCarthy’s concoction of eroticism, bleak fatalism and pitch black humor comes together perfectly, resulting in one of the best scenes of the film. As told by Reiner (with Javier Bardem managing the tone of tale perfectly), Malkina’s windshield masturbation technique is both a display of her raw sexual energy and a confirmation that she’s dangerously unpredictable. “You think she knew what kind of effect this might have on a guy?” the Counselor asks. “Jesus, Counselor, are you kidding? She knows everything,” is Reiner’s reply. This is sex as power and currency, and there isn’t a doubt that Malkina’s wildly sexual nature masks a lethal cunning.

But elsewhere, McCarthy’s script and Ridley Scott’s direction serve as prime examples of how sex scenes can be rendered flaccid, and the the makers of “Fifty Shades Of Grey” would be advised to pay close attention. The film opens with pillow talk between the Counselor and his fiancée Laura, and like most pillow talk, if you’re not saying yourself, there is already a distance between the words and the act that’s difficult to bridge dramatically, let alone authentically sexily. And it’s a task made harder when that pillow talk is as dry as it is (“Tell me where you want me touch you”) and shot as hilariously, 2-AM-on-Cinemax way Scott does, with his camera literally roving beneath the shades. And a later sequence, in which the Counselor literally asks aloud, “Is this phone sex?” only underscores that if you have to ask… well, it’s probably not that good. One should note, both these two “sex scenes” are dirtier in the script and feel more sensual on the page, but they don’t really come off that way onscreen and perhaps that’s because they’re kind of neutered and not as raw.

“Hey-Its-That Guy!” Cameos While the basic premise of “The Counselor” centers on one man’s spiritual collapse when he gets mixed up in the drug trade, the larger ambitions of the film aspire to paint a portrait of an enterprise where there are no moral considerations, only consequences. And to achieve that, the story presents a world of secondary, often fleeting characters, played by a sea of familiar faces. They sometimes have little bearing on the narrative, thematically, such as Edgar Ramirez’s priest who refuses to listen to Malkina’s confession (as we’ll get into more below). At other times, random scenes—such as the sequence with Dean Norris and John Leguizamo that could be a “Breaking Bad” deleted scene—only serve to underscore what we know, that drug dealers generally aren’t very nice. But even for the rare cameo that does add some texture, such as Toby Kebbell’s slimy ex-client of The Counselor’s, there’s another like Natalie Dormer’s mysterious The Blonde, that is merely there to serve little more than the machinations of the plot. And from Bruno Ganz’s diamond dealer to Goran Visnjic’s shady partner of Malkina’s, the movie doesn’t go long without a character actor or respected name showing their face in the movie. It’s just too bad that much of it serves very little purpose.